


Through the thick skin, through the thick skull

by orphan_account



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: M/M, stupidity galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 01:42:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30064743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Vergeef me, asjeblieft.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Kudos: 1





	Through the thick skin, through the thick skull

I have yet to see two Weasly's - no, an entire family of Weasly's - stop Gellert Grindelwald from ardently trying to achieve what he most desires.  
Listen to the world again and you will hear him sing - and, btw, it was Bathilda Bagshot who literally called him last night with an urgent request, in code, as she always does. I'd suggest you start looking at her place.

When Gellert, after having done the ardently trying at the river where he was born and where he'd already been performing the most important ritual so far (namely, accepting that was born under bad stars and trying to have nature accept that as well), was about halfway the long walk back to his car this afternoon (alone; with newforming blisters on his left heel, after he'd thought he'd finally found a way to heal them forgood; the sun setting in the West in his back, which meant shadows in front of him; the strong cold wind now blowing straight into his face, instead of helping him by pushing him forward; literally walking in the gutter, because walking on the soft grass hurt too much with the blisters in his boots), he muttered: "I really am Tereisias - a Seer, yes, but above all, I have been blind. Utterly, utterly blind. How could I not see that my greatest fear was his greatest fear as well? Equals, most definitely equals. It could've saved me all of that 'emergency exit' preparation and angst that I experienced while preparing that ritual for him, where I - against the higher powers - created an artificial situation in which I would help him, but he would not be obliged to help me at all. I ritually practiced not receiving help, after I'd given help myself, even though help was literally laying two inches away from in the form of soft, warm, an utterly good smelling dark green fabric. I did not have the fabric's permission and I was definitely not going to make assumptions, not even for mere holding. Consent is very much a thing, and who'd want to help someone so tainted by so much non-humaneness? Someone who appears so powerful and so strong all the time, but who literally cringes like an abused dog at the mere thought of someone being kind to me, especially physically, a notion masterfully installed there by something higher that literally grown into my flesh like barbed wire, the removal of which was so extraordinarily painful that it could only be done in a state of half trance after three days of sleep deprivation, underfeeding and maddening tooth pain, and required the assistance of being held both a higher authority, and - to his great shame - the strong recollection of a memory of a specific someone holding him, because he wasn't strong enough to do it on his own. After he'd already called that same memory several times to help him, meekly justifying it with: 'He might not want to do that anymore, not at all, but in the past he might, in the past he would have, perhaps, and if I'm ever going to make it to him alive, if he's ever to hear this offer I want to make him at all, then I have to do this. I feel so bad about it, I'm 98% sure it's trespassing, it's transgressing, but I cannot make an offer when I'm dead. It's better to die than to betray one's friends - only the paradox was that in this case, I'd be betraying him most by dying.'  
I now know, from what he's written to me, that I needn't have worried about that at all. That I could've made it so much easier for myself."  
That is how much wiser Gellert has grown.


End file.
